84 BRITISH FOSSIL ELEPHANTS. 



they could not have had separate alveoli. Again, neither in extent nor in direction 

 of wear do the planes of detrition of the upper and lower jaws, left side, agree. 

 The extent of worn surface of the two teeth on either side of the maxilla is 46 

 millimetres, but it is 60 millimetres on the left lower jaw and 40 on the right, 

 so that the j»r<?-ante-penultimate tooth does not seem to have had an opposing 

 grinder, although its crown, as may be seen in De Blainville's plate iv, fig. 1 , is more 

 than half detrited. Further, the tips of the coUines of the penultimate of the left lowev 

 ramus should present fewer abrasions than those of the right side from the additional 

 tooth in front ; but this is not so, the two being equally detrited. De Blainville's figure 

 shows three well-marked septa between the teeth of the left ramus, none of which, how- 

 ever, remain in the specimen, excepting a remnant of the one in front of the penultimate ; 

 besides, the ante-penultimate tooth of the right lower ramus is now wanting. Altogether, 

 the specimen is at present hopelessly useless as an exponent, jyer se, of this so-called abnor- 

 mality — a conclusion I have arrived at after a careful re-examination of the specimen in 

 consort with my friend, Mr. W. Davies, F.G.S. It is to be desired, therefore, that all like 

 abnormalities should be carefully described, in order to further establish the existence of 

 this so-called First milk-molar. 



Among the varied and interesting Mammalian remains discovered in Kent's Cavern, 

 Devonshire, is the remarkably diminutive milk-molar. No. 5774 (PL IX, fig. 4).^ 



In a memorandum kindly furnished me by Mr. Pengelly, F.R.S., he states that the 

 tooth was found "on the 2nd of December, 1871, in the Cave of Rodentia, in the four- 

 foot level of cave-earth, with one tooth of Hysena, and bones and bone fragments." It 

 is described by Mr. Busk, F.R.S., with his usual care and precision ; and he surmises, I 

 think justly, that it may be the /?re-ante-penultimate milk -molar of the Mammoth." It 

 was originally entire, but a fragment of the crown has been recently lost. In dimensions 

 this tooth is one of the smallest milk-molars of any Elephant with which I am acquainted, 

 and is even more diminutive than the first milk-teeth of the Maltese Pigmy Elephants. 

 It is 0'4x0*3 inch in breadth, the smallest from the Maltese Elephants being 0'4x0*32, 

 whilst the /^re-ante-penultimate of the African Elephant is 0*65 X0"4. 



The crown-formula of fig. 4a, PL IX, is x 2 x. The tips of one of the digitations show 

 signs of detrition, and the well-formed and consolidated fangs give evidence, at all events, 

 that the animal did not die in the womb. The probability is, therefore, that this very 

 small tooth may be a rare instance of the ^/-e-ante-penultiraate appearing in the lower 

 jaw of the Mammoth, its long divergent fangs leading to the belief that it belonged to the 

 mandible. 



^ For permission to figure this interesting object and other Mammoth remains from the above-named 

 rock cavity I am under obligations to the Kent's Cavern Committee of the British Association, and to that 

 laborious and painstaking cave-digger, Mr. Pengelly, whose troglodytic researches have done much to 

 advance our knowledge of the Pleistocene fauna of Great Britain, and to systematize cave-e.\plorations in 

 general. 



2 ' Report Brit. Association,' 18/2, p. 37. 



